Trees trees trees trees...

... and yet more trees...

We were a small group last time, between flu season and travel season! But, perhaps inspire by spring in the air, we all had trees to share in our journals.

Maz was inspired to investigate leaf shapes this month. A lot of Australian trees look very similar to one another at a casual glance, so finding the small details that distinguish them can be quite important, especially for those of us interested in dyeing with them!

 

 

First she had words for the different shapes. Isn't "oblanceolate" a wonderful word?

 

Then she drew pictures of the shapes. So now we know what oblanceolate leaves look like!

 



 

Her next pages looked at the shapes of the tips of leaves and the way they're arranged on the stem.  Specific Australian trees species are mentioned, which is really handy if they happen to be good for dyeing!

 

Then we have a specific kind of leaf cluster called compound palmate leaves, like you get on Umbrella Trees.

Last of all, she looked at the veins in the leaves, which can have distinctive patterns, and at structures in the leaf called domatia. A lot of Australian trees have specific domatia, such as bumps, hollows or bristles on the surface of the leaves. The kind of domatia and their location can be an identifying characteristic.

 
So now you know! With your leaf guide in one hand and a tree twig in the other, you're well on the way to identifying the tree species, and that will tell you whether it's likely to give you wonderful colour in your dye pot.

Meanwhile, Helen was continuing with her fantasy trees. She's inspired by the gorgeous trees you find in medieval tapestries. This one is a Tree of Life, which she drew with Aquarelle pencils. These trees are fascinating because they always had many different fruits on them, something even the most ardent grafter couldn't achieve!

Nola's trees showed more of her experimentation with techniques. This month, she was working with  different kinds of collagraphs. Her first tree was a print from a craft foam plate stitched with embroidery thread and printed with Permaset printing inks.

Her next prints were leaf prints, made by impressing a leaf into a piece of foam meat tray, using a marble rolling pin. This is what she got when she printed the plate.

Then she created an impression plate by putting objects on a piece of foam core sheet and running it through a press. These plates are all very low relief. 





While she was printing , she accidentally over-inked the plate. She took a very wet print to clean the plate and then took a monotype from the wet print.

She liked this one much better than the prints she'd been getting, as the wet inks gave interesting patterns that were very natural. She also liked the second print she took from the wet plate.

Sometimes these accidental prints are the best!

Cindy didn't create anything in her journal this month but she did bring a tree to show us.

Isn't it gorgeous? It's called "Can't see the wood for the trees" and she made it for the untethered exhibition out of hand, in November this year. The background is made from her prints, many from gelliplates. The canvas on which its mounted is also printed with white textural media. The tree itself is beautifully three-dimensional, made from couched yarn.





August

Our apologies, there were a few hiccups with blogging this month!

So what have we been doing since you last saw us? Well, yes, we are still continuing with our trees theme in our journals.
Nola has been making rubbings. "The council came and trimmed one of our trees, and left a slice of tree trunk behind. It had interesting markings on both sides from the circular saw." Nola used watercolour crayon, dry...

 
... Inktense pencils, dry and watercolour pencils, wet...

 

...Inktense pencils, in two colours, wet, and wet watercolour crayon with an Inktense pencil overlay. It's interesting how each medium or combination gives a different amount of detail, enhancing or obliterating the natural wood grain.



 

Maz is coming to the end of her top Australian eucalypts. This time she focuses on Silver Dollar Gum Eucalyptus cinerea, beloved by Australian eco-dyers for its brilliant orange colour; Scribbly Gum,  Eucalyptus haemastoma, which has wonderful scribble marks on its bark left by moth larvae; and Spotted Gum Corymbia maculata.

 

 Cindy made some tree drawings with watercolour pencil in her journal.  

 They'll be the basis of some wonderful work one of these days!

July in the Emerald City

We've been quiet at Fibrecircle this month, mostly because there's so much going on. People have been coming and going so our meetings have been on the small side. We're looking forward to having at least most of us back next month!

Meanwhile, though depleted in numbers, we've been staying warm and keeping busy. Yes, we've been working on our Tree journals.

Cindy got bored with real trees and decided to move onto fantasy trees. She drew this one with black pen and Inktense pencils.

Maz is still working down her list of top ten Australian trees. This month, it was the Red Cap Gum Eucalyptus erythrocorys from Western Australia, the Salmon Gum Eucalyptus salmonofolia from Victoria and the Red Flowering Gum Corymbia ficifolia from Western Australia.

 

So many gorgeous gum trees in Australia!

 

This month, Nola was experimenting with natural dyeing. First, she painted paper with methylated spirits and clamped it with leaves from the Grey Ironbark Eucalyptus paniculata.



 











The results are quite pale and don't show up well in photos. As a technique, it leaves a lot to be desired.

She also did some with hot water and the same method, which look faintly rusty. Usually these leaves give a brilliant orange colour when boiled.

 
The gum blossoms came out much clearer.

Just a bit of fun, really.

I think that I shall never see...

... two trees that are the same in our journals! It's amazing - every time we bring our tree journals, we've done something different.

Helen's tree each month shares the same initial as the month so M for May is also M for Maple. She created several pages with acrylic paints and pen, in honour of this beautiful tree with its distinctive leaves, which provides us with glorious colour in May.

These pages were created from the maple photos in Photoshop.

Gorgeous possibilities here for stitch!

Yvonne was interested in the seeds of the raintree, parachidendron pruinosum. This is another Australian tree, found in the rainforests of the eastern coast, from the tropics to south of Sydney. The seed pods make interesting twisted shapes, with very black seeds. Gorgeous!

Yvonne's drawing was made with graphite pencil and watercolour pencils.

Nola is using her Trees book to try different techniques. This time, she was working with pastels. She coloured the background of her pages with soft pastels, and then painted over the loose pastels with gesso. This softened the colour and fixed the surface. Then she used her paper tree stencils and added more pastels through the stencil and then another layer of gesso. Shadows of contrasting colours and highlights of white were added.The result was very soft.

 

The background of the third page was made the same way, but the loose residue of the soft pastels on the surface of the stencil was dragged into the holes before more gesso was added for stability.

Her last tree was created the same way but highlights and shadows were added with oil pastels, which gave sharper lines and more shine.

Maz continues her research on Australian trees.

 

More trees next month!

Tree journals for May

At our first May meeting, we brought our journals to share again.

Maz's May journal pages began to focus on 12 specific species of gum tree.

First she researched some general information on gum trees.

Her first tree was the Blue Gum.

More gum trees next month...

Nola had done a lot on her journal since April. First, she had the second part of the block printing she did with Ezy-Carve blocks last time. This one was a relief block, where the background is cut away, leaving just the lines to be printed. The first prints were done with Permaset printing inks.

These prints are intaglio prints, in which colour is rubbed into the cut areas and a second colour added to the relief sections. The first print used the incised block from last month; the others used the relief block.

Her next trees were paper cut-outs that had been used as a resist  for silk screen printing...

 ... while this shows the resulting print, using the paper cut-out resist and a screen with a pattern in wax screen fill.

Then she embellished one of the screen printed trees with Inktense pencils.

Her last pages came from various stencilling with dyes. The first came from the day we used Dala Sun Dyes for stencilling and used another paper stencil, reinforced with gesso.

This tree was stencilled with Drimarene K dyes and another paper stencil, reinforced with gesso. It was printed over another of the screen prints.

Her last page showed a tree stencil design that she created with a glue gun, and the resulting print.

She has been busy, hasn't she?

More tree journal work coming soon...